Community Loaves has been on our list of places to try for quite some time so when they invited us out to check out their pizza night we jumped at the chance to pay them a visit. Normally we’d give you some quick info about how the business got started or who runs it but WJCT did such a beautiful Job sharing Meredith and Sarah’s story and passion for bread and community we’re going to ask you to take a minute and check out their story before you read our article about their community pizza nights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLmOZ6eT8I
Community Loaves – Hummus Roasted Eggplant Zaata Pizza
Community Loaves – Pizza Night
Address: 1120 Edgewood Ave South
Phone: 904-381-0097
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/communityloaves
Before we dove into the pizzas we got a chance to sample a couple of Community Loaves cookies. Their salted dark chocolate rye cookie was pure chocolate heaven. It is sinfully delicious and intensely dark chocolate. If you’re a chocolate lover you won’t be able to stop eating these. They’re firm on the outside like a typical cookie then they have the texture of a brownie in the middle plus incredible rich chocolate flavor then you get a nice bit of saltiness to top things off. These will blow you away. We also tried the spelt(a type of wheat common in parts of Europe) and molasses chocolate chip cookies. It was a pretty above avg chocolate chip cookie. Last of the sweets we tried was a pear scone. I’ve never had a pear scone before and was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was. If you like scones and pears there’s no question you’ll enjoy it. The pear in the scone had a milder flavor that is typical of pear and the texture ended up being really nice. I’ll make sure to stop in and grab one next time I’m craving a scone.
Community Loaves – Spelt Cookie
Community Loaves – Pear Scone
Every Wednesday Community Loaves holds a pizza night in their garden behind the bakery. If you’d like to attend you’ll need to buy a ticket online. Event announcements happen on their facebook page. Like them on Facebook to stay in the loop. Tickets run $12 plus tax. Pricey, we know. However, this is definitely a case of “you get what you pay for.” These are great high quality vegetarian pizzas. The pizzas are made with organic ingredient and essentially are pizza on sourdough bread. The pizzas change every week with two options being available to choose from when you arrive. A set number of tickets are available for each hour that pizza night goes on and they do sell out some hours. We showed up for the 6pm seating and there was plenty of seating available.
The garden area is quaint and comfortable. You’d never expect to find such a nice relaxing space right behind a retail store. They are picnic tables and everyone shares tables. Sometimes this forced community style seating can be slightly uncomfortable but it just feels right in this environment. As we were getting seated the blue grass musicians started to play and created a wonderful wistful atmosphere. We almost felt a bit like we were transported to the country somewhere. Meredith and Sarah have done an awesome job of creating an environment that builds community and gives you the opportunity to make new friends. That’s exactly what we did while we were there. They gentleman that ended up sitting next to us was an awesome conversationalist. I thought I’d sit and write this review while I was dining but I ended up having such a great conversation that I put it off til later.
Community Loaves – Music
Community Loaves – Chocolate Rye Cookie
The two pizza options were Hummus roasted eggplant za’ata pizza and a pizza with house made ricotta cheese, collards, and garlic aioli with tomato sauce. Before this visit I’d never heard of a pizza with hummus on it and I wouldn’t have thought it would be particularly good. However this one turned out to be pretty tasty. The baking process did seem to dry the hummus out a bit and make it less creamy though. The roasted eggplant was a nice match for the hummus. Overall it was a pretty good pizza I’d be happy to eat again. The real standout was the pizza with ricotta and collard greens. Again, collards are not exactly something I’d think to put on a pizza. However, they turned out to be a great choice. The pizza was full of flavor and didn’t have the bitter taste that collard greens sometimes have if not prepared well. As big cheese fans we really enjoyed the house made ricotta cheese. Each flavor in this pie matched perfectly with the other flavors involved make it a wonderful treat. As a hardcore meat eater I never knew a vegetarian pizza could taste this good!
Overall we had a great time at Community Loaves pizza night. When we talk to foodies around town the consensus seems to be that Murray Hill is the next up and coming area for food in Jax. We think Community Loaves is a big part of the reason why. Come for the community. Stay for the pizza!
If you’d like to buy tickets to a future pizza night you can do so at this link: http://communityloavespizzanight.eventbrite.com/ or by calling 904-381-0097
From time to time we are invited out to dine at a location and offered food on the house. We are under no obligation to write a good review…if it’s not good we’ll tell you. Community Loaves invited us out and this review was written about that visit.
youngest fan..